wom 
| der, 
| superb and brilliant. 
SPANCEL. 
ticular locality, not requiring the use of other 
agents than the sinewy arms of the agricultural 
labourers? Its general adoption, indeed, will 
atford a greatly extended supply of field work— 
labour, too, of the most healthy, the most valua- 
ble kind—carried on in the broad light of heaven, 
far away from the crowds, the diseases, and the 
other miseries which attend the densely congre- 
gated citizens,” 
SPANCEL. A rope to tie a cow’s hind legs. 
SPANIEL. See Doe. 
SPARAXIS. A genus of ornamental, bulbous- 
rooted, Cape-of-Good-Hope plants, of the iris or- 
About a dozen species, besides a number of 
varieties, have been introduced to the green- 
houses of Britain; and they love a mixed soil 
of sand and peat and loam, and are propagated 
from offsets. They vary in height from 3 to 15 
inches ; and they present great diversity in the 
colour of their flowers. The name sparaxis is 
| derived from a word signifying ‘to tear,’ and 
| alludes to the lacerated spathes. 
SPARGANIUM. See Bur-Ruxzp. 
SPARMANNIA. An ornamental, exotic, ev- 
ergreen shrub, of the lime-tree family. It is a 
native of the Cape of Good Hope, and was intro- 
duced to the gardens of Britain in 1790. It 
| commonly attains a height of about 10 or 12 
| feet, and blooms from March till July. 
Its 
foliage is large, cordate, and pendulous; its 
flowers grow in umbels, and are nodding; its 
petals are white, and have purple tips resem- 
bling anthers; and its general appearance is 
It may be treated simi- 
larly to the orange-tree, but requires a richer 
soil. It constitutes a genus of itself, and is spe- 
cifically called the African. 
SPARROW. A large family of birds of the 
passerinous order. It is characterized by a 
strong conical bill, more or less thick at the 
base, and non-angular in the commissure. It 
comprises a considerable number of genera, in- 
cluding the sparrows proper, the weavers, the 
finches, the goldfinches, the linnets, the widows, 
the grosheaks, and others. Most of the species 
feed more or less on grain, and are voracious and 
more or less destructive on the farm. See the 
article Hrper-Birps. 
The common sparrow or house-sparrow, Passer 
domesticus, Mringilla domestica, or Pyrgita do- 
mestica, is one of the best known and most mis- 
chievous of the small birds of Britain. Its gen- 
eral plumage is brown, spotted with black above, 
and with grey underneath; its throat is black; 
its wing is marked with a whitish band; and 
the sides of the culotte of the male are red. It 
infests farm-steads and other inhabited places in 
great numbers, and is distinguished by greed 
and audacity. It builds under the eaves of tiles, 
in crevices or holes of walls, in the bore of old 
water pipes, and in any other small cavities 
which contain space enough for the hay and 
Its egg is ten 
feathers which form the nest. 
SPARROW. 
293 
lines long and seven lines broad, and has a white 
ground colour spotted and streaked with ash- 
colour and dusky brown. ‘The first batch of eggs 
in a season commonly consists of five or six; and 
often two other batches are laid; and no fewer 
than fifteen young birds are often raised in a year 
by one pair. The young are fed for a time with 
soft fruits, young vegetables, and various kinds 
of larve and insects. The full-grown birds are 
general devastators of both the farm and the gar- 
den; and, though believed by some naturalists 
to do quite as much good by destroying weeds 
and insects as harm by destroying crops and 
fruits, they are justly regarded by most garden- 
ers and by nearly all observing farmers as pests 
of the same class with the most noxious vermin. 
Good methods of destroying sparrows, therefore, 
rank as usefully in practice as good methods of 
destroying rats and mice. 
One effectual mode of diminishing their num- 
bers is to catch them in a net at night when 
they roost by whole companies in ricks and 
stacks, or in a large trap net with a decoy bird. 
Many may be killed at a single shot by scatter- 
ing corn in a long train, and firing at them while 
feeding. Count Buffon having been told that if 
sulphur were smoked under trees where the 
sparrows sleep at night, they would be suffo- 
cated and drop dead, he tried the experiment, 
but without success, though he took much pains 
and was interested in the issue, as he could not 
get them driven from the neighbourhood of his 
voleries. He placed on a wall covered with 
great Indian chestnuts, where the sparrows as- 
sembled every evening in great numbers, pots 
filled with sulphur, mixed with a little charcoal 
and rosin; and these substances being set on 
fire, caused a thick smoke, which had no other 
effect than to awaken the birds. As the volume 
ascended, they removed to the tops of the trees, 
and then retired to the neighbouring houses, 
but not one dropped. Another experimenter, 
imagining that the sparrows might readily be 
poisoned, mixed some arsenic with oatmeal, and 
strewed it in the paths between the beds of seed- 
lings, which they were daily devouring, but they 
never touched the poison, and his experiment 
was as unsuccessful as that of Buffon’s with the 
sulphur. Another gentleman, who had a large 
kitchen garden much infested with sparrows 
and chaffinches, was induced to go to considera- 
ble trouble and expense to prevent their rava- 
ges. He caused his labourers, when not other- 
wise employed, to prepare rods of wood about 
two inches broad, an inch and a half thick, and 
ten or twelve feet long, joining them together 
at the ends with similar rods, nine feet long, 
and, in the centre of the same, a similar rod to 
strengthen it. This frame is then wired with 
copper wire, close enough to prevent the birds 
getting through. The frame thus prepared is 
raised over the beds upon pieces of wood six 
inches Jong,—one piece at each corner of the 
